Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCQZE6FV8K7X3T6WRXF9BA2

Molly spread the blueprint across the hood of the van, smoothing it with the reverence of a surgeon laying out instruments. It was, in fact, a placemat from the Happy Otter Family Restaurant, but it had a maze on the back and she had drawn on it in red pen. "That's the bouncy castle," she said, tapping. "That's our soft entry." Bill leaned in, chewing a licorice rope. "Why is the bouncy castle shaped like a duck?" "Because the maze is shaped like a duck, Bill. Use your imagination. Now, party starts at two. Cake at two-forty. Presents get stacked on the long table by the hedge, unguarded, because every adult in that yard will be watching a magician named Mister Fantabulous fail to produce a rabbit." "How do you know he'll fail?" "Because I have the rabbit." Molly jerked a thumb toward the back of the van, where something rustled in a shoebox. "Fifteen minutes of chaos, minimum. Nobody counts gift bags during a rabbit crisis." Bill nodded slowly, the way he did when he was about to say something that would ruin her afternoon. "Moll. These are presents. For a seven-year-old." "Eight. Her name's Priya and her father owns four car dealerships, and last year she got a pony. A *pony*, Bill. Do you know what a pony costs?" "I don't want a pony." "You don't want anything, that's your whole problem as a criminal." She rolled up the placemat and jabbed him with it. "Focus. You're the entertainment. Costume's in the passenger seat." He looked. He kept looking. "It's a bee." "It's a *friendly* bee." "It's got a stinger the size of a traffic cone." "That's where we put the LEGO." Bill held the costume up against himself, and the antennae wobbled with a soft, judgmental boing. "And nobody's going to ask why a bee showed up to a party with a duck-shaped bouncy castle?" "Children," Molly said, "do not question bees. Children *accept* bees. It's adults who ask questions, and adults will be busy on account of the punch." "What about the punch?" "Nothing about the punch. I said what I said." "Molly." "There's a mild sedative in the punch, Bill, it's called rum, and I put in a very generous amount, and by two-thirty every parent in that yard is going to be telling a stranger about their divorce." She checked her watch. "We roll in at two-fifteen. You do balloon animals for eleven minutes. I take the table. Two trips, maximum, out through the hedge gap, into the van, gone before the candles are lit." "And if someone stops us?" "Then you're a bee and I'm your handler." Bill considered this. He put on the head. His voice came out muffled and slightly hurt. "I can't see anything through the mesh." "You don't need to see. You need to buzz." "Buzz." "Buzz, Bill." There was a long pause, and then, resigned, from somewhere deep inside the friendly bee: "Bzzzz." Molly patted his enormous fuzzy shoulder with genuine affection. "Perfect," she said. "Let's go ruin a childhood."